Closet Check: 5 Must-Haves.
Not immune to the circus of consumerism we all live in, I took the bait and clicked the link. I wondered if maybe I had one passable version of the 5 must-haves already in my closet. When I got to the “5 Things You Need NOW” webpage, there were actually 84 items on the page. 84. I didn’t have any of them. Not even close. See below. Yellow Floral Pant Suit.
Now 0 out of 5 makes you feel like your missing out. 0 out of 84 makes you feel like you’re living on a different planet. Either way, it’s designed to make you feel like you aren’t prepared for the next season until you click the BUY NOW link. Of course I know that and yet when my guard is down, I’m susceptible to catchy subject lines. And then once I go down the rabbit hole, it makes me feel like there’s a hole in my closet. See below. Pink Power Blazer.
The more destructive thing about the rabbit hole is that is stirs up dissatisfaction with things you can’t click a BUY NOW link to fix. Like 20 years younger and a flat tummy. Will your spring be better if you have this white top? See below. Because this one isn’t in the realm of possibilities for me.
This Morning Drink Will Do Wonders for your Weight, Energy and Skin.
You’d click too, right? So I had The Morning Drink this morning and weight = same, energy = negative, skin = still dry and tummy = very, very unsure. Tumeric in a drink? I want to believe. I will try again tomorrow and for the next two weeks before I make a judgment.
We are all consumers and guidance can be helpful as we sort through the many choices available to us. If not, I would have never found my two most recent jean purchases from Jack Wills. The best, softest, no butt cleavage jeans of all time.
But ….mostly the “Must Have”, “Must Do”, edicts leave me feeling disillusioned. It falsely promises that the “perfect” answer is still out there. It’s going to take a long time before the world is convinced that there’s a better morning drink than coffee.
Closet Check: 50 Must Purges.
It wouldn’t have the same click through rate. Also who besides a closet organiser or simplifying guru would write that? But that’s probably the thing that would bring us closer to wardrobe harmony, and metaphorically, happiness.
Deciding what to let go of is so much harder than adding something new into the mix. Cutting something loose requires a hard look at what we’ve outgrown, what we’ve made a mess of, and what we should have never bought in the first place. Likewise the path to happiness often involves pruning back the garden of your life to it’s barest essentials.
A tidying up of relationships that have passed their season allows you to focus on the important ones in front of you. A ditching of bad habits that leaves us in threadbare knots brings new things to the forefront. Weeding out the trivial things that we mindlessly gave space to is one of the best ways to foster growth.
To thrive, a garden really only needs the basics of sun, water, and the care of a gardener. When something is missing, our natural inclination is to go out searching for something new. But what if what you really need is already there, just buried under a whole bunch of stuff?
If that's true, and I think it is, we won't be needing the Pink Power Blazer this spring.